The Experiment
by Oliver Hirschbiegel
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Christian Berkel, Moritz Bleibtreu, Oliver Stokowski, Stephan Szasz, Wotan Wilke M?hringDirector: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Producer: Benjamin Herrmann
Producer: Friedrich Wildfeuer
Producer: Marc Conrad
Producer: Norbert Preuss
Writer: Christoph Darnst?dt
Writer: Don Bohlinger
Writer: Mario Giordano
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Subtitled); German (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 119 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-07-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures
Movie Reviews of The Experiment
Movie Review: The feel good movie of the year!!
Summary: 3 Stars
LOL, okay maybe not the feel good movie of the year. "This movie is a trip" said the Blockbuster clerk when I was buying this, and yeah I agree. I don't know quite what to make of this movie. I have my undergraduate degree in psychology so I'm familiar with some historical psychological experiments gone wrong. In addition to the psychology experiment many of the reviews reference that took place in 1971 @ Stanford there have been other experiments conducted that show how shockingly horrible humans are capable of acting when given power over others. When you think about how something like this is not only completely possible but goes on every day in every country in one way, shape or form, then the movie becomes less enjoyable. Plus, I could have done without all the male nudity - where's the women's prison version?! ;)
At least the movie was not grotesque. I was concerned after I had purchased it that it might turn out to be some torturous gruesome flick, but it isn't. It's more along psychological lines of humiliation, torture and power.
One thing that I thought they missed on this movie was the background of at least the main "prisoner" and the main "guard" which have the power struggle during the movie. It was explained that these two people were selected for the experiment and put on opposite sides because they wanted the confrontation between them, but we don't have any background on their personality development so we can understand why they have fallen into these roles. And the side story we get about the main character's girlfriend is just silly and really adds nothing to the storyline.
Summary of The Experiment
Inspired by a famous 1971 psychological experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel's German-language movie The Experiment finds a group of 20 volunteers randomly divided into 12 prisoners and eight guards and asked to play out their roles for a fortnight while scientists study their reactions. A conflict arises between undercover reporter Fahd (Moritz Bleibtreu), a con with a hidden agenda, and the apparently mild-mannered Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi), a guard with a megalomaniac streak. The film begins as a psychological drama as ordinary people settle into the game, with joking displays of resistance by the "prisoners" greeted with increasing brutality from the "guards," but detours into suspense and horror as Fahd, who needs the experiment to get out of hand in order to make his story more saleable, deliberately ratchets up the tension between the factions only to see the situation spiral nightmarishly out of control as various test subjects in both camps edge closer to snapping.With a terrific display of ensemble acting and unforced use of the popular claustrophobic semi-documentary look, Hirschbiegel's movie takes its time to get underway, with apparently irrelevant cutaways to Fahd's outside girlfriend (Maren Eggert), but works up to a powerful second half that delivers a sustained symphony of psychological and physical anguish. --Kim Newman
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